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200 million AD
---- }} 200 million AD, also called the Age of Invertebrates, the New World, and the Late Futurassic, is one of the hypothetical time periods focused on in The Future Is Wild. By 200 million AD, the continents have fused to create a single landmass called Pangaea II, and a single ocean, the Global Ocean. The rotation of the Earth has slowed, adding an hour to the day; the sun is brighter; and global temperatures have risen. The single continent and ocean combined with the rising temperatures creates extreme weather patterns; the ocean is battered by massive hypercanes, and most of the continent is desert. Life has finally recovered after the 100 million AD mass extinction, but most vertebrate animals are extinct. The seas are dominated by silverswimmers, the skies by flish, and the land by invertebrates such as terasquid, terabytes, and desert hoppers. Geography By 200 million AD, all the world's continents have come together to form a single gigantic supercontinent, termed Pangaea II or Novopangaea. A number of independent landmasses remain, though they are small and very close to Pangaea II. These include a large island on the east coast, and a smaller island in the northwest. Additionally, Pangaea II has a very large peninsula in its southwestern corner, and an enormous mountain chain running across its southern and southeastern coast. Much of Pangaea II's interior is desert, as the rains from the coast cannot penetrate too far inland: the Central Desert is the largest expanse of desert on the continent, though there are hundreds of underground waterways running below the centre of the continent, relics of the Shallow Sea that once covered the region. Although most of the coasts are covered in either forest or grassland, the southeast coast is also a sparse desert on account of the coastal mountains, which are tall enough in the southeast to block rain from watering the region. On the opposite side of the continent, in the northwest, the opposite is true: with no costal mountains to stop the powerful rainstorms, the entire northwest region is a drenched temperate rainforest. Since there is only one continent, there is also only one ocean, the Global Ocean, which is so enormous that, from space, some views would show the Earth as a completely blue planet. With only one landmass to interrupt the current, the Global Ocean has a constant anti-clockwise equatorial gyre (an immense circulatory current that involves the whole ocean), resulting in little water movement between north and south. Pangaea II coast.png|The Global Ocean coast of Pangaea II Rainshadow Desert morning.png|Evening in the Rainshadow Desert Central Desert oasis.png|An oasis in the Central Desert, the only source of water for that desert's organisms EP13 Rainforest canopy.png|The endless, rainy canopy of the Northern Forest. Climate Average global temperatures in 200 million AD are high, on account of geographic conditions and because the sun has grown brighter. The rotation of the Earth has also slowed slightly, adding another hour to the day, which is now 25 hours long. The Central Desert in the hinterland of Pangaea II has a particularly extreme variance in temperature: average temperatures range from over 50°C in the summer to -30°C in the winter. brewing in the sky near the Pangaea II coastal mountain range.]] The presence of a single continent has a major effect on water temperature and global weather patterns. Seawater travels westwards around the equator, being warmed by the sun as it goes, and with no landmasses to block the current, the ocean is much warmer than it ever was before. The higher global temperatures heating the seas, combined with the uninterrupted current of the Global Ocean, has led to the occurence of hypercanes, extremely powerful tropical cyclones. These storms, as well as less violent rainstorms, frequently batter the coasts of Pangaea II, creating rainforests in places where rainfall is not blocked by mountains. Life s are the most populous animals in the seas of 200 million AD.]] The life-forms of 200 million AD have had time to recover and diversify after the 100 million AD mass extinction, but climatic conditions mean most animals are still small, and the world is nowhere near so diverse as it was in 100 million AD. .]] s, such as the small, agile squibbon of the Northern Forest.]] Much of the marine flora of 100 million AD was wiped out in the mass extinction, but by 200 million AD there is enough marine flora to support large communities of marine animals. As much of the continent is desert, there is little plant life on much of Pangaea II. A variety of green algae flourishes in the Central Desert, and a number of tough, hardy plants including the carnivorous deathbottle survive in the Rainshadow Desert. To the northwest, conifers and other evergeen trees still flourish in adundance in the temperate Northern Forest, where they had lived since the Human era. In the Northern Forest, fungi and related organisms have grown much larger, creating complex structures such as lichen trees, and once-primitive slime moulds have grown larger and more predatory. Almost all the animals of 200 million AD are invertebrates, but some species of fish still survive, most notably the flish. These are a family of fish which have become adapted to a life in the air, taking the place of the birds which were wiped out by the mass extinction. Most species are maritime, filling the niches of seabirds such as terns, albatrosses, avocets, skuas, and cormorants. A number of species have left the sea behind and settled in the damp Northern Forest, filling the niches of hummingbirds, hornbills, and hawks. The sharks also survived the mass extinction, and have become social, pack-hunting animals. The most common animals of the Global Ocean are the silverswimmers, neotonic crustaceans which have filled the niches left by common fish and have become filter-feeders, predators, and scavengers which live everywhere from the sea bed to the open ocean. Most are fairly small and are preyed on by ocean flish, but some can grow to the size of a small whale. Invertebrates also dominate the land. The Central Desert is home to subterannean polychaete worms, some of which are farmed by terabytes, highly-evolved termites which build cities all over the desert. The Rainshadow Desert on the eastern fringes of the continent is sparsely populated by flying insects and desert hoppers, snails with legs. However, the most advanced animals of 200 million AD are the cephalopods. One species, the rainbow squid, the biggest animal in the ocean, is a highly intelligent creature capable of advanced communication. Other cephalopods, the terasquid, have become fully terrestrial animals in the Northern Forest, where their numbers include the largest land animal of the time, and the most intelligent. List of appearances *The Future Is Wild'' **1x01. Welcome to the Future **1x10. The Endless Desert **1x11. The Global Ocean **1x12. Graveyard Desert **1x13. The Tentacled Forest **''The Future Is Wild'' (US) *''The Future Is Wild: A Natural History of the Future'' *''The Future Is Wild'' (fulldome show) *''The Future Is Wild'' manga **06. Global Ocean **07. Rainshadow Desert **08. Northern Forest *''The Future Is Wild'' animated series **1x09. The Future Is Underground **1x13. Night Crawlers **1x14. Sweet Home Pangaea II **1x19. Swimming With Slickribbons **1x21. He Might Be Giant **1x23. Cure For The Common Megasquid Cold **1x24. Queen of the Squibbons, Part 1 **1x25. Queen of the Squibbons, Part 2 *''The Future Is Wild: The Living Book'' *''The Future Is Wild VR'' Notes *As with the other time periods, the map of 200 million AD shown in the TV series is not the same as the map shown in The Future Is Wild: A Natural History of the Future and the official The Future Is Wild website (the map used for this article). In the TV version of the map, there is a small inland sea in the south of Pangaea II, and a couple of large islands or small continents not part of Pangaea II. This version is more accurate to Christopher Scotese's original concept of the world in 250 million years. References Navigation Category:Time periods Category:200 million AD